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To the citizens of Philos, the Queen was an immortal figure untouched by time. She was the pinnacle of our Order, our ideal of what it meant to be a knight, a ruler, and a human.
And my best friend for centuries.
Xavier cradled her dying and broken body in his arms amid the rubble of a collapsed building, the light from his eyes completely gone. Dry wind whipped his silver hair into his eyes, concealing them, their hands helplessly clasped over a gaping wound in her torso.
She raised a weak, trembling hand to stroke his dirty cheek, leaving a scarlet trail in her wake. He caught it before it could fall, pressing it to his lips.
Her lips trembled as his tears fell onto her pale, blood-streaked face. They exchanged their final words, and whatever he said had made her smile one last time, the expression marred by the crimson spilling from her mouth.
Even from this distance, I could see the life drain from her face, her eyes wide and unseeing as they stared at Xavier, reflecting his figure and the starry sky above.
He grasped her limp hand and buried his face into her neck, clutching her body to his.
I looked away, not bearing to see the grief of losing the love of your life yet again.
When Bella died during the Chronorift Catastrophe, there was no body to mourn, no goodbyes exchanged. All that remained of our union was the ring that I gave her buried under piles of rubble. I gripped it as it hung against my chest.
Xavier had found me kneeling over the spot where I uncovered her ring buried in the remains of her cake shop. He was dressed in his old Lightseeker’s uniform, clearly recovering from battle as he fought the hordes of wanderers alone. His collar blinked a bright red, indicating he was on the brink of exhaustion.
“Bella’s dead.”
The words were unreal. Just this morning, we had slow danced in our tiny kitchen before heading to work, her sweet laugh still ringing in my ears, her warm embrace still encircling my shoulders as I lifted her onto the counter. I had kissed the engagement ring on her hand dozens of times until she giggled and pushed me away, claiming that I was going to make her late for work. But she wrapped her legs around my waist, pulled me closer, and we made love. I should’ve never let her go.
I stared off into the burning skyline of the ruined city around us, squeezing her ring like it could bring her back.
He put his hand on my shoulder. “I’m sorry, Jeremiah.” And he sounded sincere.
Although we were never close, a mutual respect had grown between us over time. For many years I had been angry with him, believing he had abandoned our Queen, but I came to understand that we were both working toward the same goal: saving Philos. I was all he had left of her, after centuries by her side, I probably knew her better than anyone alive.
And of everyone I knew, he would understand the most.
“Tell me, how do you bear it? The grief?”
Xavier was silent as he knelt heavily beside me, staring at the horizon.
“Each time I’ve lost her,” he began, his voice quiet and soft, “it gets more difficult to carry on. In truth, if I lose her again, I don’t think I-” he hesitated as his voice broke.
I was quiet as I focused on his words, trying to ground myself from the waves of grief washing over me. Each time?
I looked at my shaking hands, Bella’s ring nestled in my palms. To bear this grief more than once was unimaginable.
“Having a purpose helps,” Xavier continued. “And she has always been my purpose. My guiding starlight.”
“Even now, when you haven’t seen her in centuries?”
He was quiet for a long time. Then, he spoke so softly, his words nearly melted into the burning wind. “Especially now.” He paused. “I’ve found her.”
“What? Then that means-”
“Yes. We are close to going home.”
But what was home if Bella wasn’t with me?
We were silent, my tears flowing freely down my face, dripping into my hands.
“My Bella isn’t like her. I will never see her again.”
“You can’t know that,” Xavier disagreed quietly.
I wanted to argue, to scream and hit him. But all I could do was sob silently into my hands as he sat beside me.
Years later, when Xavier walked into my flower shop with the Queen, relief had bloomed through me. He looked the happiest I had ever seen him, as though a long-standing weight had finally been lifted.
She was by his side, just as she was meant to be.
I was glad for them—truly glad—even as I mourned the friend she no longer remembered being.
Yet, I was still hopeful. Somehow, she would be the key to reuniting with Bella. The key to returning to our home in Philos at last.
And that hope died alongside her when I saw her body pierced by an Ever-modified Wanderer.
Xavier’s body was as still as the corpse he clutched to his chest.
I grabbed his shoulder, unable to look at the face of my friend in his arms.
“Xavier, Ever is sending reinforcements. We have to move.”
He ignored me, rocking back and forth slightly, his hands cradling the back of her head.
“Xavier, c’mon. Let’s take her back to Philo.” My voice trembled.
He suddenly raised his head to look at me, his face unnervingly expressionless, his eyes a dead, flat blue.
“Again,” he whispered. “I’ve failed her again.”
“Let’s go.” I grasped his shoulder firmly. “We can’t leave her here.”
He exhaled roughly, securing her body to his and reaching for my forearm. Without his suppressor, he would easily be able to teleport us back to Philo. But as I studied his worn face, as if the centuries had finally caught up to him, I wondered how much longer he could hold out like this.
I grasped his forearm back and closed my eyes through a flash of blinding light. There was a brief disorientation, like I was being pulled sharply through my torso, and then we were back in Philo.
The store was deathly quiet, the foliage black in the shadows. I clicked on a few lights. She had been here recently, giggling at Xavier’s clumsy attempts at flower arranging, praising my skills, and delighting in the way his jealousy showed so plainly on his face. I flinched as I noticed our arrangements on my workbench, fully in bloom.
I led his silent figure to the back of the store, where my bedroom was located. He placed her gently on my bed, his eyes never leaving her empty face.
“We should bury her,” I said quietly at his side. She looked small and fragile in death, and he knelt to brush her tangled hair from her face, grasping her hand to press it to his lips.
“Where?”
“I think at our ship, the last bit of home we have left.”
He let out a pained gasp but slowly nodded.
“I’ll leave you be. We’ll leave in the morning.”
The shop was silent, empty without her laughter and teasing. I sat heavily on the sofa in my dark living room, hanging my head in my hands, and cried.
***
Isaiah and Sullivan arrived early, their faces gray with grief.
The Backtrackers had failed. We were never returning home.
Although that possibility had been made clear when we swore oaths to the Queen of Philos and Xavier, the reality of the situation hit us heavily. Earth had treated us well, and in fact, was quite similar to our home in many ways.
Yet a quiet sense of not belonging followed us all, a shadow we could never outrun. The wine was never quite as sweet, the flowers never as fragrant, the food essentially dust in our mouths. It was uncomfortable, but never unbearable when thoughts of returning home were enough to sustain us.
But even more painful for us was the failure of our Queen.
She had sacrificed her eternity for us, using her power to sustain all of Philos.
And yet, we couldn’t return the favor of saving her from her eternal torment.
Sullivan clasped his hand on my shoulder when a few tears slipped from my eyes. He was physically the oldest out of us, his face aging a great deal in our time on earth, the lines deep across his forehead and his dark hair streaked with gray.
“How is he?” His voice was low and slightly hoarse.
I shook my head. He grimaced and nodded.
“So is that it, then?” Isaiah’s petulant voice disturbed the suffocating silence.
Sullivan squeezed his eyes shut briefly, taking a deep breath, before turning to him.
Isaiah was by far the youngest of the Backtrackers, but the centuries did nothing to improve his emotional maturity, what little he possessed anyway.
He sat with his arms crossed on the couch, his gray eyebrows furrowed in anger.
“What do you mean?” Sullivan asked.
“Are we just going to roll over and die? She can just reincarnate, can’t she?”
Sullivan and I both cast furtive glances at the closed bedroom door.
“We can’t predict when her next cycle begins.”
“Maybe we can’t, but surely he-” he pointed at the door, “can. Isn’t that how we ended up in this mess in the first place?”
“Keep your voice down, you idiot.” I hissed, smacking him on his head.
“Don’t touch me, you idiot. I’m just asking questions,” Isaiah protested, rubbing where I hit him. “Yeah, it’s sad she died, but it doesn’t mean we-”
The bedroom door suddenly flung open. We all turned to look.
Xavier stood there, his arms empty. His skin and hair were gray, like all the light had been sucked out of his complexion. His eyes were dull and empty. He raised his hand silently, a glowing protocore nestled in his palm.
Behind him, she was gone. Her body had disintegrated, likely starting another cycle in some other timeline. Chills ran up my spine.
“Her final gift to us,” Xavier’s hoarse voice croaked out. He cradled her protocore like it was the most precious of jewels.
“A…protocore?” Isaiah sounded unimpressed.
“Her Aether core,” Sullivan whispered. “We could power the ship. We could backtrack again.”
“But Ever…they will never stop trying to get her.” Xavier stared at us with unseeing eyes. Words he had once spoken to me hung heavy between us.
“No,” I clenched my fists. “Xavier, you can’t.”
“It’s the last thing I can do.”
“Do what?” Isaiah whipped his gaze between the two of us.
“He’s going to take on Ever,” I said.
“But he’ll die!”
If I wasn’t so horrified at Xavier’s suggestion, I would’ve smacked Isaiah again.
Instead, I raced to Xavier and grasped his shoulders.
“You can’t do this. You’re abandoning her.”
Xavier’s lips parted, a pained gasp escaping them.
“She’s better off without me. I will only fail her again.”
I shook him. Disturbingly, he let me. “That’s not true. You know she loves you.”
He squeezed his eyes shut, swaying on his feet. I held him steady. His head tipped forward, chin resting on my shoulder. He was trembling.
“Despite it all and no matter what, she loves you.” I hugged him. “You were all she thought about during those centuries you were gone. She would never blame you. We don’t blame you either, Xavier.”
It was silent. He raised his hands to grasp my arms, and I thought I had gotten through to him for a split second.
But then he gently extricated himself from me, his face full of devastated acceptance.
“Jeremiah. There is still a chance to save her and Philos. But you will need to continue without me.”
“You can’t-”
“That is a command, officer.” His tone left no room for further negotiation. Then, gentler this time, “You will be Captain in my place.” My stomach dropped.
“Xavier, please-” I opened my mouth to protest, but the ice in Xavier’s gaze stopped me. I raised my hand to my chest hesitantly, slightly bowing my head.
Somewhere in the back, Isaiah scoffed.
“Him? That peasant? I think I’d rather die than listen to orders from that idiot.”
We all ignored him. Xavier turned to look behind me.
“Sullivan, you will do well to serve Jeremiah. I know it was never your intention to lead the Backtrackers. You will remain the Vice Captain.” Sullivan nodded solemnly, placing his hand over his chest too.
“What about me?”
“My cousin, you will be promoted to Chief Officer.”
“Still under that peasant, eh? Well, we’ll see…” Isaiah muttered to himself, but otherwise nodded haughtily and saluted so I knew he was pleased.
Sullivan and I stared at Xavier, his expression like stone and I knew we could never convince him to come with us. Not when we had one final chance to save everyone.
“Alright, Captain, what are your orders?”
Everyone turned to me.
***
The resting place of Traceback II was quiet in the night, the overgrown vegetation long recovered from our disastrous landing over 200 years ago. The ship had been dead since then, but there was life in her yet. I caressed a section of the hull as we entered through the open boarding ramp, my fingers revealing the hint of silver under the thick layer of grime.
The inside of the ship was a mess, dust and tools strewn all over the floor from previous repair attempts.
“I’m not cleaning any of this up,” Isaiah muttered as he tripped over some unidentifiable tool.
Though it was completely dark, we found the control room easily, the paths ingrained into our memories. Xavier used his Evol to open the protocore hatch, placing her Aether core at the center. His fingers caressed the jagged surface, unwilling to let go just yet. It glowed at his touch, as though it, too, was reluctant to part with him.
Finally, he closed the hatch, and the ship surged to life. Lights flickered on in waves as a thunderous roar filled the chamber, the awakening of a long-dead engine.
“Good evening, Captain Xavier.” Traceback II’s smooth voice greeted us. “It’s been a long time.”
Xavier placed his palm over the control console. “Indeed, it has.”
“Good evening, Jeremiah, Sullivan, and Isaiah. You all look well.”
“Hi, Traceback II,” we all mumbled.
“What is the status of Operation Backtrack II?”
“I failed,” Xavier said simply. “We are initiating the final protocol.”
Traceback II was silent for a moment. “I’m sorry to hear that, Captain Xavier. Are there no others?”
“We’re all that’s left.”
“I see.” The lights flickered for a moment.
“Furthermore,” Xavier continued, “I will no longer be Captain. Jeremiah will take my place. Sullivan will remain as Vice Captain and Isaiah has been promoted to Chief Officer.”
“Congratulations, all.” But Traceback II’s voice was hollow. After all, what good was a promotion when there were only four people left?
“It has been an honor serving you…Xavier.”
He clenched his fists, but remained silent, turning away from us.
“Uh, Traceback II?” I fiddled with my hands.
“Yes, Captain Jeremiah?” I flinched at my new title.
“Can you give us a ship status report? Uh, please?”
“All systems are fully operational.” Traceback II paused. “Filthy, but operational.”
“We’ll get you back to your full glory soon. What about the Slepen pods?”
“The chamber sustained heavy damage upon landing. Only three functional Slepen pods remain.”
I frowned, making eye contact with Sullivan. Xavier did not react.
“Are we able to liftoff?”
“Yes. I will need time to prepare the systems, but this new core is quite powerful. We should have enough energy for several more centuries.”
Xavier recoiled and turned away suddenly, quickly striding out of the room.
“Thank you, Traceback II. We will be preparing for liftoff soon.”
“As you command, Captain Jeremiah.” The title sat heavy on my chest, undeserved.
“Make the preparations,” I told Sullivan and Isaiah, who rolled his eyes. “You know what to do.” Sullivan nodded while Isaiah sighed loudly and slinked away.
I chased after Xavier, who had stepped out of the ship. He was gazing at the stars when I found him, arms hanging at his sides.
“What are you going to do?” I asked, but I didn’t want to hear his answer.
“There are three pods for you, Sullivan, and Isaiah. I will remain here and make sure Ever doesn’t interfere with our mission ever again.” He didn’t look at me.
“But you never used the pods anyway! You can still come with us.”
“Jeremiah,” he said softly. He looked at me, but there was nothing there. Just a Xavier-shaped husk. “You believe in our mission, yes? Our cause to save her and Philos?”
“Of course. I swore my Oath.”
“Then you must do this. You must leave me behind.”
I shook my head. “There must be another way, Xavier. You can’t keep shouldering this burden alone.”
He looked back at the stars. “She has been carrying it alone for millennia. Perhaps eons. I vowed to save her, even if it costs me my life.”
“But you’re throwing it away on purpose! She needs you. She suffered in your absence on Philos.”
His gaze didn’t waver. “But she was alive.”
“What good is being alive if you’re alone?” I shouted at him. To my surprise, a couple of tears slipped down my cheeks. “Why would you subject her to lifetimes without you? Do you think she would forget you so easily?”
“Yes,” he said simply. “She deserves to live freely. My existence has only caused her pain.”
I pressed my clenched fists against my eyes until my vision whitened. Then I looked at him.
“If you go through with this,” I stepped closer, my voice dropping to a harsh whisper as I searched his expressionless face, “she will never know peace. She will always feel incomplete, chasing something she can never reach. And it will be you who condemns her.”
I turned away from him before he could answer, heading back into the ship.
It was going to be a long night.
***
Between the three adults of the group (and Isaiah), we managed to get the ship in passable condition.
Sullivan and I stood just outside the boarding ramp, inspecting the surfaces for anything that could fall apart during takeoff.
“It’s like we never even crashed,” I murmured as I stroked the hull.
“I wouldn’t go that far,” Sullivan muttered as he checked the hinges of the ramp. “We’ll be lucky if we don’t disintegrate in the atmosphere.”
I chuckled dryly as I continued my inspections.
“Chipper as ever, huh, Sully?”
He grimaced at his old nickname.
We worked in companionable silence for a bit, going through our inspection checklists. I paused to look at Xavier in the distance sitting on a log and staring at the trees.
“Do you think he’s really given up?”
Sullivan’s question took me by surprise. He was never one to pry into things that didn’t concern him directly.
Xavier’s shoulders were hunched, his once pristine posture slumped as if he no longer had the strength to carry himself.
I wanted to say no, that deep down, Xavier’s will was as indomitable as always. But I remembered the look on his face as he held her lifeless body in his arms, and his unspoken vow if he had failed our mission.
“I think so,” I replied quietly.
“But he was always a bit melancholic, wasn’t he? Even before we crashed on Earth?”
Sullivan wasn’t wrong. Xavier had been a serious Captain, rarely participating in our group shenanigans when we were all together. Always staring out the portholes to the vast expanse of space as if searching for her. Always alone.
“But it’s never been like this, you know that.”
He was quiet for a moment, methodically wiping his hands with a rag. “It’s like he’s already dead.”
I winced and took a steadying breath. “You shouldn’t say things like that.”
Sullivan shrugged, but his head dipped in apology. “I’m not saying he’s gone. Just…” He looked at Xavier. “Perhaps it would be a mercy to him.”
I swallowed. I couldn’t claim otherwise to Sullivan’s statement. If I didn’t have my Oath, I’m not sure how I would’ve continued after Bella’s death.
The silence that followed felt heavier than it should have as we returned to our work.
“By the way,” I said after a while, “I’m sorry for taking the Captain position from you. You deserved it more than I did.”
Sullivan chuckled. “I didn’t want it. I much prefer being Vice Captain, even if I have to follow your orders.” He playfully smacked my back.
“Better me than Isaiah, anyway.”
“Oh Gods, could you imagine?”
We both laughed at the thought.
Then, a loud boom shattered the air. We looked at the skies to see a rift had appeared a few kilometers away, wanderers spilling out of it.
We sank to our knees as the ground trembled from the impact. Seconds later, Isaiah was sprinting towards us from the treeline.
“They’ve found us, we need to leave!” he shouted.
Sullivan cursed and pushed himself up, already turning toward the ship.
“Prepare for takeoff. We need every second we can get,” I said, scrambling for our weapons.
I threw a gun to Sullivan as I moved, then vaulted off the ramp into cover beside it. Xavier was already prepared, lightblade drawn and expression full of cold fury.
“Get back in the ship, Jeremiah. I’ll handle this.”
“No,” I replied stubbornly, watching Isaiah draw his own lightblade, his breath heavy.
Xavier opened his mouth to argue, but was cut off by a roar of a Wanderer charging towards us. At once, Xavier turned his deadly focus onto it, teleporting and slicing it in two before it could get close.
It was just the beginning. Dozens more appeared, stampeding towards the ship. I shot at a few as Isaiah successfully took down several more. Snarls of wanderer rage and pain filled the air.
Xavier, however, was a one-man army. Wanderers seem to disintegrate in his wake, his power fully uninhibited at last.
But the horde was relentless. I realized Ever’s plan was to fully exhaust Xavier by sheer numbers, overwhelming us before we could take off with the Aether core.
If Xavier knew, he didn’t care. He cut each wanderer down as if it had personally killed our Queen, his Evol blinding with power.
“Pace yourself,” I shouted at him when I saw his chest was heaving with exertion.
But he ignored me, jumping back into battle when a new wave began.
“Five more minutes!” Sullivan shouted from the control room.
Isaiah and I had been pushed back to the ramp, on the verge of being overwhelmed. A wanderer had crept behind him while he battled another, winding up to strike him. I shot it in the face, its monstrous body dropping beside him before dissipating in a cloud of particles. He nodded his thanks before continuing to battle.
But I could tell he was exhausting his energy, his lightblade dimmer than before.
“Get in the ship!” I shouted at him.
“And let you have all the glory? You wish!” he sneered, fatigue breaking through his usual haughtiness.
There was a small reprieve in the horde. Where was Xavier?
I whirled around. He was limping towards the ship, blood pouring from his side.
Behind him, a fresh wave was coming towards us.
My stomach dropped. I was low on ammo, Isaiah was on the verge of collapse, and Xavier was dying. We weren’t going to make it.
I ran to Xavier, catching him when his knees gave out.
“Get…out,” he gasped, struggling to rise.
“We can still make it, we’re almost there.” I tried hoisting him over my shoulder, but he pushed me away, hard.
“Can’t. Still need…destroy…Ever.” He used his lightblade to push his body up, horribly wheezing from a pierced lung.
Depleted, wrecked from grief, and with all odds stacked against us, Xavier still rose, pushing his feet in a defensive position in front of me and wielding his blade.
“Close your eyes,” he barked at me as his lightblade began glowing brighter.
I didn’t have time to protest his suicidal maneuver, knowing this final burst of Evol would be his last. I clasped my hands over my eyes and heard the sharp sound of his light piercing through the wanderers heading towards us. Then, the loud thud of his body collapsing as he failed to complete his attack.
It was pure instinct as I scooped his unconscious body in my arms, whirling around to the ship. Isaiah was crawling up the ramp, nearly drained. Sullivan rushed out to meet us.
“Take him,” I threw Xavier’s body to Sullivan.
“He’s still breathing,” Sullivan gasped.
“His Evol is depleted. We are going to save him. Put him in the pod.”
“But there’s only three-”
“That’s an order, Sullivan.”
He pursed his lips, staring at me hard with his gray eyes. “Understood, Captain. The ship is ready for takeoff.”
“Start it up. I’ll be right there.”
Sullivan nodded and ran back to the ship, Xavier over his shoulder.
In the distance, I heard the roars of more wanderers. I turned to look, watching the trees shake in the onslaught.
Ever was never going to stop.
Even if we managed to get off this planet to backtrack to some other timeline, they’ll still be in this one, tearing through every layer of reality in pursuit of our Queen’s Aether core.
And Xavier couldn’t fight like this even if we left him. He was alive, but it would surely take centuries for him to accumulate enough energy to regain consciousness.
I held Bella’s ring in my palm, squeezing the cool metal.
I would not fail my Oath.
“Jeremiah!” I heard Isaiah shout. He was almost in the ship, crawling using what little energy he had left. I ran to him.
“Here we go, c’mon, almost there,” I encouraged as I helped him get up.
“I did well, didn’t I? Definitely killed more than you.” Even on the verge of collapse, his arrogant tone carried the same bite.
“Yes, you did,” I chuckled softly, ruffling his gray hair that was plastered to his forehead with sweat.
I guided him to the entrance, well within the ship. Behind me, the ramp began to close.
I looked at Isaiah one last time, smiling.
And I jumped out, landing hard on the ground before the door could close.
“What are you doing, you idiot?” Jeremiah yelled, struggling to rise from the floor.
I didn’t answer him, watching the ship begin to lift.
“Jeremiah, no! No!” Isaiah’s screams turned frantic as the doors fully closed, breaking his cries of grief.
The ship groaned and creaked dangerously, but I knew it was going to succeed its trip. I smiled to myself as it rose further out of reach from the oncoming wanderers.
I watched it for a second longer before it shot into the sky, offering a silent prayer to the Holy Sword of the Goddess to protect the friends I would never see again.
There were no goodbyes this time either.
Vaguely, I wondered how long it would take Sullivan to realize I wasn’t on the ship.
Then, I turned and ran.
***
In the house Bella and I had once dreamed of, I sat alone in the empty living room. Along the walls hung photographs of my friends, snapshots of happier times immortalized in paper and ink.
There was Sullivan with his characteristic grimace as I attempted (and failed) to make him give me a piggy-back ride. Isaiah and his reproachful glare as I toasted my beer can with his glass of wine. And an assortment of the other Backtrackers who had each lived, loved, and died here on Earth after setting on off their own paths. I had clung to each memory like a lifeline as I lived out the rest of my life in solitude.
Ever had been eradicated. I had made it my life’s mission to cut down every lab and every board member until they no longer existed to threaten our Queen. The work had filled decades.
And Xavier still had his chance for happiness. I hoped he would forgive me for it.
I stared at photo with Xavier and our Queen, their beautiful faces frozen in joy as they embraced each other. I hoped they would one day find the peace I was about to find.
I turned my attention to the picture in my hands, a simple portrait of Bella’s smiling face. Though the ink had faded with time, her beauty remained untouched.
“I’ll see you again, soon.” I traced the curve of her cheek in the photograph, remembering the warmth that used to bloom there when I kissed her, the way she would smile against my lips when we spoke of the life we planned together.
The life we had never got to start.
I pressed her portrait to my chest, my final salute, and closed my eyes.
***
***
***
***
Ever since I could remember, there was something missing.
An absence so profound, I couldn’t describe whether this longing was for a thing or a person. I only knew I had been born incomplete.
I had a wonderful childhood, full of the privilege that came with being part of the royal line of succession for the Philos empire. I had never wanted for anything, with immediate access to the best food, education, and experiences anyone could ever dream of.
Yet every fleeting moment of happiness was shadowed by a strange sense of yearning, like I had lost something precious and simply couldn't remember what it was.
As I grew older, I searched for answers everywhere. I buried myself in books, traveled across the planet, and met countless people. Each time I encountered someone new, a small, desperate part of me wondered if they were the one I had been looking for. But the feeling never lasted. No matter where I went, I always returned home with the same hollow ache nestled beneath my ribs.
The feeling haunted my sleep. More than once, I woke to the sound of my own sobbing, grieving a loss I couldn't name.
For my 22nd birthday, I took to traversing our galaxy, desperate for answers. I had been gifted a mighty ship from my parents, complete with a trusty crew who were just as hungry for adventure as I was. We spent the months drifting through space, landing on uninhabited and inhabited planets alike, chasing after otherworldly delights.
Yet, it still wasn’t enough.
I sat alone in my chambers, gazing out of the window at a breathtaking sea of stars and distant planets.
The door slid open.
“Your Highness,” said one of my assistants, bowing deeply after entering. “We have located an unidentified craft.”
“Has the crew responded?” I peered out my window to look for it.
"No. We believe the vessel has been abandoned. We've never encountered technology like this before. It appears to be extremely old."
I perked up. “Or one from the future.”
The assistant was unfazed, already used to my odd imagination.
“How would you like to proceed, your Highness?”
"If the crew is gone, there's no harm in exploring it, right?"
The assistant nodded once. "We'll prepare for docking."
Excitement stirred in my stomach. For the first time in months, the familiar ache inside me seemed to quiet.
I was practically bouncing up and down as we waited for the docking process to be completed. But as soon as I stepped foot onto the vessel, I was brought to a dead stop.
I…knew this place.
Under the filth and dust, my feet carried me through the dark passageways ahead of my cautious crew. The air was stale, likely continuously recycled for centuries. The overhead lights glowed weakly, their faint illumination barely piercing the darkness.
I walked without hesitation, the anticipation growing within me until my hands shook.
I should have been frightened.
Instead, a strange certainty guided me onward. Each corridor felt like a memory lingering just beyond my grasp, solidifying with each step I took.
I only stopped when we reached three dimly lit pods. My gaze locked on the middle pod, and I walked straight to it.
My breath caught.
There was an angel in suspension.
Silver hair framed a face so beautiful it seemed unreal, as though it had been personally sculpted by a patient god and jealously hidden away from the rest of the universe. Thick, long lashes rested against pale skin, softening his elegant features. His hands were folded over his chest, a strange star tassel nestled between his fingers.
Even asleep, he possessed an effortless grace that made it impossible for me to tear away my gaze.
Dressed only in a thin white shirt and trousers, he appeared less like a man preserved in a pod and more like a celestial being awaiting the moment he would wake.
“There are other ones here, Your Highness,” a crew member softly called to me, the rest of the members crowding around the two pods.
I could scarcely take my eyes off the man in front of me, but I managed to briefly wrench my eyes away. One of them looked older, his face mature and his dark hair streaked with thin stripes of gray. The other had fully gray hair, but looked the youngest out of the three men. They were dressed similarly to the man in the middle.
I traced my fingers over the cold glass of the pod, gripped by a yearning so fierce, it stole the breath from my lungs.
“Are they alive?” I asked hesitantly.
"The vessel appears to still be powered and the pods undamaged, so it would seem so."
Alive.
My hand remained pressed against the glass, the word echoing through my body. Relief washed over me so violently that it nearly brought me to my knees. I steadied myself using the pod, inadvertently triggering some mechanism. The pod hissed, the door opening.
“Stand back, Your Highness!”
But I didn’t dare listen when the angel’s eyes fluttered open, and I met eyes made of the clearest blue.
My knees gave out. But before I could fall, he caught me in his arms, wrapping them around me tightly and cushioning the collapse to our knees.
There were shouts of alarm around me, but I couldn’t move, held in place by his intense gaze.
His hands trembled where they gripped me around my shoulders, as though he couldn't quite believe I was real. His magnificent eyes searched my face frantically, drinking in every feature with a hunger that made my chest ache.
Then his lips crashed to mine, kissing me fully and deeply, longing and grief pouring through his touch. I clung to him just as forcefully, every inch of my body pressed against his until I felt his thundering heartbeat against my own.
Slowly, the urgency faded. His hand rose to cradle my cheek, thumb brushing across my skin with heartbreaking tenderness. When he pulled back to stare at me again, wonder shone in his eyes.
Then, confusion.
He whirled around, still holding me, taking in the others. A short, broken laugh left him when he identified his comrades.
“Jeremiah,” he whispered, his tone colored with grief, relief, and anger.
When he turned back to me, indecipherable emotions flickered in his eyes. We traced each other’s faces with reverence, resting our foreheads together.
“You found me,” he murmured, his warm breath fanning over my face.
“I don’t know how this is possible,” I whispered, my voice breaking at the last word as inexplicable tears blurred my vision.
I couldn’t understand the ecstasy surging through me, or the impossible relief of being held by someone I had never met before.
All I knew was that, for the first time in my life, I was complete.
A silence stretched between us as we breathed each other in.
Then I smiled.
“But I think I’ve been waiting a long, long time for you.”